


Shattered

by closemyeyesandleap



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Angst, F/F, Guilt, Hopeful Ending, Mutual Pining, Post-Season 4, Rated T for language and general darkness, Reconciliation, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-23
Updated: 2019-05-23
Packaged: 2020-03-09 21:18:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,073
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18925225
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/closemyeyesandleap/pseuds/closemyeyesandleap
Summary: Lena struggles to deal with the aftermath of Kara's betrayal.Kara struggles to give Lena space.Lillian Luthor sees an opportunity.





	Shattered

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers for season 4 finale

_Crunch_. 

Somewhere in the back of her mind, Lena knew that she should have heard a shatter.

Instead, all she heard was a dull thud. 

She glanced down at the picture beneath the broken glass. Blinking slowly, she looked up. Her gaze focused on the wall across from her, not really seeing it.

It was almost comical. How many times had she sat at that desk after all, wondering, searching her mind for some justification for the stab of betrayal _de jour._

Almost. 

Her hand shook on the glass, clattering it against the shards below. She pulled it to her lips and took a deep swig. The liquid burned going down, and she relished the sting.

Lena pulled out the bottle of liquor from below her desk. Her eyes glazed, she refilled her cup. Her hand paused for a moment when the liquor reached three fingers, but after a millisecond of hesitation, she continued pouring.

“Look who’s pouting,” a voice whispered. “Poor baby Lena, feeling all sorry for herself when she killed her only brother.”

She knew Lex wasn’t there. The voice was coming up from inside of her, from the muddled depths of her shaken and intoxicated mind, but still she shuddered. She took another gulp of liquor and straightened her posture.

No need to look defeated.

No reason to look like her world had been knocked off course.

“And you killed how many hundreds? How many _millions_ were you planning on slaughtering?” she hissed at the deepening dusk. “You think about that and then you tell me who’s playing the victim.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Lex leered. “Don’t you know? ’Killing is never justified,’” the voice laughed, adopting a pedantic, high-pitch quality. “Isn’t that what your precious Supergirl always says?”

Lena’s hand tightened on the glass. She drank another large swallow, then another, staring ahead at the wall.

“No wonder she didn’t tell you,” the voice continued. “No wonder none of them told you. You were useful to them, sure. But you’ll always be just a Luthor to them. A dog. A dog to be trained and petted and used, then shot when she loses her value. Never a trusted friend. Never a lover.”

“No,” she whispered back. Her chin trembled ever so slightly. “Stop.”

“But what they don’t know,” the voice mercilessly insisted, “Is that you’re not even a Luthor. A Luthor doesn’t let herself be chained and domesticated like someone’s bitch.”

“Enough!” she growled, pushing back the thoughts that took her brother’s voice. 

Lena narrowed her eyes. She glanced around the room. _Work._ She needed to work.

As her hands were darting around her desk, looking for a stack of designs to review, her phone began to buzz. Her heart pounded furiously as she saw Kara’s wide grin spread across her phone’s screen, pink frosting spread like messy lipstick across her lips and face. 

Lena had taken the photo one evening as they cuddled on her couch, talking far into the night. She had used the image as Kara’s contact photo on her phone because in it, Kara looked so carefree, so beautiful, with a tinge of sexy from the mussed hair. Every time she saw it, it used to make Lena want to clean the frosting from Kara’s mouth with kisses.

She knocked the phone off her desk with the back of her hand. It bounced on the floor before landing near the middle of the room.

Now, that picture just made her want to vomit.

“Research,” she muttered to herself. She gave half a glance at the computer in front of her, the one she knew contained her most developed ideas and her digital models.

The same computer where just last month, in a flight of girlish fancy, she had made a giggling selfie of her and Kara her background.

“Idiot,” Lena breathed. She couldn’t bring herself to look at that, not now. Besides, she wanted to handle something, to tear through papers, to ball up ideas and throw them across the room, to scheme and design and barriers.

Now was not the time for polishing off old ideas. Now was the time for creating something new—something amazing, something that would change the world in a way that Kara and her cronies could never do.

Something that would wipe the blood stains from her hands from her hands.

She got to her feet, a little shakily, and stumbled across the room.

“Come on, come on,” she groaned, pulling out notebooks and papers, trying to find one idea—just one—that was crazy and impossible and amazing and enthralling enough to fill the gaping hole that was her life.

She pulled out a stack of loose-leaf papers with old designs. When she almost tripped over her high heels, she decided it would be wise to settle on the ground. 

Lena spread the papers around her, pulling a bottle of whiskey close to her. Her glass was long abandoned on the desk.

“No, no, no,” she muttered as she tossed aside page after page. “N—” she felt the whisper of a spark in her chest, a pale ghost of the excitement that always flooded her at a flash of insight. “Yes.”

Her hand had settled on a design for a clean energy cell. It was deceptively simple, deceivingly unsolvable, and dramatically world-changing if done right. Months ago, when the potential of Harun-El had revealed itself, she had thrown aside the cell as an impossible dream, a project for another day—after, perhaps, she had cured all illness.

But now? If she took what they had learned about energy and matter from Lex’s alien experiments and even her work the Harun-El…

Her mind began to buzz with ideas, even as the alcohol sank deeper and deeper into her bloodstream. She began to turn over papers, trying to find blank backs to scribble equations and designs and plans. 

She knocked the stack over.

There, nestled within the stack, was an early plan for her Anti-Kryptonite Suit. A memory flashed through her mind: Supergirl’s—no, _Kara’s_ —bright smile as she had explained the attributes of the new-and-improved suit. She remembered how she had fantasized about watching the suit disassemble from Supergirl’s body as she basked in the glow of her eyes. 

With a snarl, Lena grabbed at the design for the suit. She tore it and packed it into a ball and threw it across the room. 

“You’re pathetic,” the voice muttered again, the one that spoke like Lex. Lena remembered feeling guilty about her fantasies of Supergirl… how could she be fantasizing about one woman when she was on the verge of telling another how she felt?

“They were laughing at you.” Memories from the previous day flashed through Lena’s mind. Alex, J’onn, Brainy, Kelly, Nia, and _Kara_ all smiling and laughing as they saw her walk through the door.

“Look at the little bitch. Drooling and wagging her tail at her mistress’ feet as her mistress laughs at her neediness,” the voice taunted. “Just like I laughed at you.”

“Go away,” she begged. Her mind had grown fuzzier. It was growing increasingly difficult to remember that Lex wasn’t in the room.

“Those we _kill_ never leave us, Lena. Why do you think I went insane? You’re me now, Lena.” 

Her heart settled like stone in her stomach. Was this, then, what it truly meant to be a Luthor? Your only relationships a web of deceit, blood stains on everything you touch, long days and nights alone with your designs and schemes as your mind slowly retreats into madness?

With yet another swallow of amber liquor, she bent over the papers, trying to lose herself in equations.

“Now, you have someone who will stand up for you. No matter what.” Kara’s voice felt so real, so pure, for a moment Lena thought that she was right in the office with her. Lena trembled and reached for her drink, but her eyes settled instead on her phone. 

Fumbling with the device, she went to the first name on her favorite’s list. She jabbed at the name until finally the phone began to ring. And ring. And ring. And ring.

“Hi, you’ve reached Kara Danvers. I must be off searching for my next big story, so please leave me a message so that I can give you a call back! Thanks!” Kara’s cheerful voice chimed from the voicemail. 

Bile rose in Lena’s throat. She would have never guessed the duplicity that hid behind that sunny voice, the voice that, even now, made her traitor heart give a little flip. 

She pulled the phone close to her mouth. “F- f- Fuck you!” she screamed, her mind foggy with alcohol and rage. “J— jus fuck you. Yoush can go to fucking hell! Ah!” she screamed at the end, her rage finally overtaking her capacity for speech.

“Boo!”

Her head shot up, and she dropped the phone. Lex was leering down at her, a wide grin on his face and a red stain over his heart. 

“You’re not here. You’re not here,” Lena gasped, her lower lip trembling.

“I told you, sis. I’ll always be here,” he sneered.

Lena stumbled to her feet, her eyes clouding over and her world spinning. She scrambled to get away from the image before her, and tripped. 

Her world went dark.

* * *

“I’m going to go.”

Kara paced across her loft, the afternoon sun starting to fade behind her windows. Kelly and Alex shared a quick glance.

“She said she wanted to just have a day to herself, Kara.”

“She was off last night, Alex. Lena might say she’s okay, but I know her. She shoves down her feelings and pretends to be strong, but she is never okay after she’s seen her family. And that’s on a normal day! Not when she witnessed her brother try to take over the world and destroy another planet while stuck in a room with him and her mother! I need to check in on her!” 

“And you have, Kara. You called her five times today. She didn’t answer. You need to respect that,” Alex said, her voice as gentle as possible.

She shared another glance with Kelly. Kara narrowed her eyes. Dating for a day, and they already had a secret language of looks—looks intended to tell her to calm down and not look after the woman _she_ loves? 

“I agree with Alex,” Kelly said softly. “Everyone deals with trauma in their own way. She’ll need you, Kara, but you need to respect her process.”

“You don’t know Lena,” Kara muttered, trying to keep her voice steady. Another of those infernal glances. “I don’t even have to bother her. I could just fly up, look in, make sure she’s okay—”

“Just because you have superpowers doesn’t mean you have the right to invade someone’s privacy,” Alex said gently. “I know it’s hard to wait. Come on. Let’s put in a movie. Lena will talk when she’s ready.” She rubbed her sister’s shoulder. “Come on, I’ll let you pick.”

“Fine,” Kara conceded. She settled onto the couch next to Alex. Kelly crawled in on Alex’s other side. 

Ten minutes in, Alex paused the movie. “You haven’t taken your eyes off your phone since we started.” Alex took the phone from Kara’s hand. Switching it to silent, she put it into her own pocket. 

“Stop worrying. We just saved the world. Give your mind a break for a moment.”

They sat in silence as the movie played. Even though it was one of Kara’s favorite movies, she couldn’t concentrate. But Alex was right. Maybe Lena just needed time to process what had happened, to find her footing again after being dragged back into her childhood hell.

At the first note of the credit music, however, Kara switched off the TV. “Phone, Alex.”

Alex sighed and rummaged in her pocket. “Like I told you, no calls. I would’ve felt…Oh.” Her eyes narrowed.

“What?!” Kara exclaimed, grabbing the phone from Alex’s grip. The screen cracked in her grip, but luckily it remained mostly intact. “It died! I could’ve missed a call!” 

“It’s okay, here’s the charger,” Kelly said soothingly, handing Kara the cord. They waited for a few tense minutes as the phone gained enough juice to restart.

Kara’s heart sank when she saw the notifications: “one missed call from Lena Luthor,” and below it, “one new voicemail from Lena Luthor.” 

“It was only two minutes ago,” Kara muttered, her pulse slowing slightly. “Thank goodness.”

She put the phone to her ear. 

“F- f- Fuck you! J— jus fuck you. Yoush can go to fucking hell!” A scream followed, then a crash and a horrible thump.

“Be on coms,” Kara said to Alex.

In a flash of red, Kara flew from the room.

* * *

The flight from Kara’s loft to Lena’s office was only twenty-six seconds (Kara had calculated it once), but it felt much, much longer.

She didn’t understand exactly what had happened, only that Lena had been drunk to the point of slurring her words, angry as hell at someone in the room, and terrified, and then somebody had fallen and—her blood turned to ice at the thought—Lena hadn’t spoken again.

Kara landed on the balcony. 

She scanned the room for Lena and the intruder. All her X-ray vision picked up was a limp form lying on the ground behind Lena’s desk, its pale arm outstretched.

“Lena, no,” she breathed, dashing inside. “C’mon, Lena. Don’t be dead, please, Lena! Don’t be dead!” 

She glanced around the room as tears began to pour from her eyes. No sign of any intruder—just Lena lying motionless on the floor, a gash on the side of her head dripping blood onto the floor, a whiskey bottle overturned in a pile of papers.

She took Lena’s pulse and breathed a sigh of relief at the faint but steady beating.

“Alex, Lena’s hurt. Someone hit her with a blunt object on her head, I think. There’s a lot of blood but she’s alive. I’m flying her to the DEO. Get Brainy to check the security footage at her office.”

“On it,” Alex replied. “Kara, she’ll be okay,” she added.

“She has to be,” Kara said as she gathered Lena in her arms and flew from the building.

* * *

The first thing she noticed when she awoke was the glaring light, followed by the dull ache in her head. She raised her hand to her temple and winced as her fingers brushed against the gauze.

“Where am I?” Lena asked the empty room, trying to get her bearings. The last thing she remembered, she’d been in her office. She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to clear the cobwebs from her memory. She recalled piles of paper—her research—scattered across the ground. 

Her mouth tasted like sick, but still, a faint tinge of whiskey lingered. 

_Shit._

“Where am I?” she called again, worry creeping into her voice as she remembered how Lex’s voice had tormented her mind the night before.

With a flash of red and blue, Supergirl rounded the corner. Lena heard an rapid beeping as her pulse quickened. With the sight of Supergirl—Kara—everything came flooding back. Kara’s betrayal, the alcohol, the laughter of her friends, Lex’s voice… the only thing she didn’t remember is how she ended up lying in a bed with gauze on her head and a pounding in her brain, but she supposed that was probably the alcohol’s fault too.

“You’re okay, Lena. It’s okay,” Supergirl said soothingly. 

Lena opened her mouth to speak, but her lips trembled as words escaped her.

“You’re at the DEO. You’re going to be okay. You just… you fell, at your office,” Supergirl said apologetically. “We were scared you had been attacked, but Brainy checked the security footage, and, well, you just got a little tipsy and fell, and hit your head on the desk.”

Lena’s eyes narrowed. “Is that so?”

Kara nodded. “It happens, Lena. After everything you went through—you shouldn’t have been alone. I’m sorry.”

Lena sucked in a breath, anger racing through her veins, replacing the confusion. Even after everything, Kara continued to lie. She stood there, dressed like a hero, speaking words intended to soothe, and _lying._ Still lying.

“How did you know to look for me?” Lena asked stiffly.

Supergirl bit her lip and looked down.

God, had she always been such an awful liar? Lena’s stomach churned. How had she fallen for it? Lex was right. She was a fool—so desperate for someone to believe in her that she’d make herself blind to the obvious lies.

“Kara Danvers. You… you called her before you fell. Maybe on accident, she doesn’t know. She said you sounded upset and then she heard a crash, and she wanted me to check up on you.”

“I see.” Lena’s eyes flashed a cold fire. She considered asking Kara to leave, pretending she needed sleep. Then she considered yelling and screaming, throwing Kara’s lies in her face. 

But she did not just want to scream. She wanted to wound. She wanted Kara to hurt as much as she hurt, to feel the same sense of betrayal and confusion and shame that she had felt watching images of Kara _lying_ to her face.

She wanted—no, needed—to purge those feelings from her body.

“And what did Kara Danvers say I said?” Lena asked carefully.

“You… she said you were really upset. You were cursing, screaming. That’s why… she thought you were talking to someone in the room.”

“Kara Danvers thought that, did she?” Lena asked. “Well, no,” she said slowly, shaping every word into a dagger before she spoke it. “You can tell Kara Danvers that I _was_ talking to her. You can tell her that I know she thinks she’s a hero… of a journalist, that she’s so clever, that she’s got the world at her feet, but I think she’s pitiful.” 

Lena’s voice was ice, cutting and deliberate. “You can tell Kara Danvers that I never want to see her fucking face ever again.” She gave Supergirl a smile that didn’t reach her eyes. “Can you do that for me, Supergirl?” 

Supergirl’s—Kara’s—mouth fell open. “Lena, I— you know.”

Kara’s words came out as a statement, not a question.

Lena raised her eyebrows. “And to think it was the perfect scheme. Superman’s cousin uses her secret identity to pretend to befriend the weakest of the villainous Luthors, to get close to her, so that Supergirl knows her every move before she makes it. You know, Supergirl, I thought I was the strategic genius but you—you’re the calculating one.”

Kara mouthed words but didn’t speak. Horror spread across her face as a tear dripped down her cheek. 

Lena felt a brief flame of victory followed by deep emptiness.

Finally, Kara spoke. “You don’t really believe that, Lena,” she whispered.

Lena let out a ringing laugh. “Apparently I’ll believe anything.”

Kara knelt down besides Lena’s bed. “There was no plan, Lena. You’re my— you’re important to me. I never wanted to lie to you. I just wanted to keep you safe.”

“Sure,” Lena replied. “That makes perfect sense. The two people in the world who most delight in hurting me both knew, as did just about every friend we have, but sure, you lied to protect me.”

“I was going to tell you,” Kara whispered. “After Lex was defeated. Ask James, I—”

“James, the same man who spied on me to please his pal Supergirl? That James? Because that’s it, isn’t it? Tricking me has been something of a group hobby for all of you.”

“No, Lena! I swear. I was just so afraid of losing you,” Kara begged, tears now streaming down her face. “At first I lied because I didn’t know you well enough, and then once I did, you and Supergirl had started fighting over the Krypto—”

“Me and you, you mean? There is no ‘Me and Supergirl.’ There is only me and you, Kara. You threw my past in my face, you accused me, you doubted me for _weeks_ and then you’d take off your cape and put on your glasses, and show up in my office with a smile and a hug.” 

“I was wrong.” Kara looked at the ground. “That’s all. I was so wrong, Lena. You were only ever trying to do what you thought was best. Every hug, every word of encouragement, all of our brunches and late night chats—all of it was real, Lena. I swear.”

Lena pulled herself out of bed, wincing. “I’m leaving.”

“You had a concussion. You should stay here for Alex to look over y—”

“I own a hospital, Kara. I don’t need liars masquerading as my friends to take care of me.”

“Lena, please,” Kara cried. “Lena, I—”

“No,” Lena said, her voice hard. “You don’t get to claim any of it was real. Not while you’re standing here, dressed like that.”

Lena was still wearing her clothes from the night before, sans shoes. She couldn’t stand being in the same room as Kara any longer, so she marched barefoot from the place.

She had barely managed to get out of the DEO before she slipped into an alley, collapsing against the wall, her chest heaving with silent sobs.

* * *

**Two months later**

It was half past eleven, and Lena kept almost drifting off at her desk. 

Of course, she had worked much later nights, but in the two months since Lex’s attack and his devastating reveal, her sleep had become increasingly limited. The lack of sleep was really starting to take its toll.

Lena worked endlessly. She had managed to construct a prototype of the clean energy cell, but even that discovery wasn’t enough to stop L Corp’s stocks from plummeting.

Not only did the public’s already very thin trust in any Luthor crumble after Lex’s attack, but also Lena had become isolated. She refused to take on collaborators, and only accepted the most important meetings. Her new assistant didn’t even know how she took her coffee.

She preferred it that way.

Lena hadn’t even noticed that she had drifted off when the sound of buzzing tore her from her haze.

She felt a slight surge of hope that she immediately pushed down. No, she didn’t want it to be Kara, no matter how her traitorous heart persisted in loving the woman. 

The Kara she loved was dead, replaced by a manipulative liar, and soon, Lena would kill the last lingering vestiges of her feelings for her.

She glanced at the text message and sighed. “Mother.”

The text message read: “We need to meet, Lena. Come to 6524 Red Canyon Road at 8 PM tomorrow. I miss you.”

What new schemes had Lillian concocted? The woman was nothing if not predictable. “I miss you?” Lillian might as well have texted a flashing neon billboard that a plot was afoot. 

Lena narrowed her eyes. 

She needed to know what Lillian was plotting.

* * *

The next evening, Lena dressed in a pair of practical but sharp boots and a pantsuit that made her feel powerful. She pulled her hair back into a tight bun and applied her dark red lipstick. She studied herself in the mirror.

A casual observer would think that she looked formidable, unstoppable. They wouldn’t see how Lena was slowly crumbling. 

6524 Red Canyon Road ended up being—big surprise—an abandoned warehouse in the outskirts of the city. Lena walked into the building cautiously but deliberately. Her mother was a shark. Lillian could smell Lena’s slightest weakness in the air like blood in the water. 

Lena’s hand fumbled with the phone in her pocket. After her falling out with Kara, she had angrily deleted Kara’s number. Before leaving for the evening, though, she had reentered it. She had a message ready to send out in case things went south with Lillian.

She may not trust Kara Danvers, but she wasn’t about to let Lillian get away with hurting people because of her feud with Supergirl. Besides, in a twisted way, Supergirl had always been honest about who she was. Supergirl fought for her own version of justice and let Lena know it when she disagreed with Lena’s methods.

No, Supergirl was honest, if arrogant and judgmental. It was Kara Danvers who was the liar.

“Lena.”

Lillian’s smooth voice sounded from behind Lena, and she turned. Lena hadn’t noticed Lillian emerging from the shadows.

“Mother.”

“I’m so glad you could make it, Lena,” Lillian said, leaning in to give Lena a stiff, uncharacteristic hug. “How are you managing after your brother’s untimely—”

“We both know you didn’t summon me here to know how I was feeling about Lex, Mother. So how about we skip the lies and get straight to what you’re planning?”

“Oh, I’ll get to it. But it is relevant, you know. How often does a sister kill a brother, unarmed, at point blank range?” Lillian raised her eyebrow, and Lena felt a jolt in her heart. How did Lillian know about that?

Lillian must have noticed her reaction, because she added. “Oh, Lena, you can’t honestly believe that I wouldn’t find out. That bunker had cameras. Really, Lena.”

“Well, it’s not every day either that a mother puts polonium in her son’s tea either, is it, Mother?” 

Lillian brushed Lena’s comment aside. “I also saw you as Lex died.” She studied Lena’s face. “You were hurt. Angry.” 

Lena kept her gaze fixed on her mother’s, fighting every urge in her body to turn away. Lillian was the last person she wanted to talk to about the sense of betrayal she felt towards her friends—or her feelings for Kara.

“Are you going to get to the point?” Lena said sharply.

“You want revenge against Supergirl. I can help you with that, Lena. Here, now.”

Lena sucked in a breath. 

“I know you do, Lena. You can’t hide anything from me.”

Lena nodded slowly. “Yes, I want revenge.”

Lillian smiled widely, victoriously, but Lena wasn’t done.

“Sure. But I am not going to act on it. That’s the difference between you and me, Mother.”

“That’s the difference between strength and weakness,” Lillian spat. “The Kryptonian used you, betrayed you, and spit you out, and you insist on standing by her?”

Lena didn’t answer.

“Well, have it your way,” Lillian shrugged. She stepped back and squeezed her fingers together, as if to press a button. Suddenly, a thick glass box sprang up from grooves in the ground, surrounding Lena. “I’ll have my revenge on Supergirl, and you’re going to help me… willingly or not.”

Lena rolled her eyes from inside her prison. “Oh, give it up, Mother. How many times have you tried to defeat her?”

“An embarrassingly large number, it is true, but now I have what I need to bring the Girl of Steel groveling before me on her knees.”

“And that is?”

“Hope.”

Lillian gave Lena a sinister smile and pulled something out of her pocket. Lena’s phone.

“How did you get that?” Lena asked, lunging at the glass. The boundary was thick, and all she managed to do was bruise her hand. 

“And it’s unlocked. Really, Lena? You make it almost too easy.”

Lena cursed herself. She had taken the lock off of her phone so that she would be able to instantly send the message to Kara if and when Lillian revealed her nefarious plan. 

Lillian laughed. “Oh, Lena. This is so pathetic. You were going to warn Supergirl about _me._ Cute. Delete. Now, let’s see… I don't want to be too obvious. Maybe, hm, yes, this works.” Lillian adopted a needy tone that made Lena’s skin rankle. “‘Kara, I miss you. I can’t do this anymore. Please, let’s talk. Meet me at my office in an hour, please.’”

“She’ll never fall for that,” Lena hissed.

“Of course she will. You’re her kryptonite.” Lillian smiled. “And if you’re not enough, well, luckily I have quite a bit of my own.”

“Mother, don—!” Lena tried to shout, but she began to feel dizzy. A sharp scent filled her nose as gas was pumped into her tiny cell, and she collapsed.

* * *

“That looks great, Nia,” Kara smiled at her protege. “I made a few edits that I think will add an extra punch to the story, but other than that, it was nearly perfect.”

“Thanks, Kara,” Nia said as she looked over Kara’s edits on her newest article for Catco. 

“We’ll present it to James tomorrow. It’s getting pretty late.” She paused as she felt her phone buzzing in her pocket. “One sec, okay?”

Her stomach did somersaults as she saw Lena’s name.

“Is everything okay, Kara?” Nia lowered her voice. “Are we needed somewhere?”

Kara shook her head. “No, it’s not— it’s Lena. She wants to talk to me.”

* * *

It was late, and L Corp was locked. Kara had been hoping to walk up the stairs—no need to accentuate her Supergirl identity, not if Lena was finally ready to talk.

But Lena had invited her this time, so she quickly changed into her Supergirl suit and flew up to the balcony of Lena’s office. 

Lena was sitting at her desk, her back to the window.

Kara landed softly on the balcony and pulled herself into a corner to quickly change back to her regular clothes. She wanted to come as Kara, not Supergirl.

“Lena,” she said cautiously as she walked into the door of the balcony. 

Lena looked back stiffly. Kara expected to see steeliness or anger or sadness or even—maybe, just maybe—happiness. Instead, she saw panic.

“Kara, it’s a trap!” 

The blast of kryptonite hit Kara before she could defend against it. She fell to the ground and struggled to get up, tripping over herself. Thick, green ropes laced with metal and kryptonite twisted around her legs, arms, and torso. 

“There we go,” a cold voice said. “That wasn’t so hard.”

The fire of the kryptonite burned through Kara’s veins. The rope felt like it was searing off her skin. She looked up in agony, and her eyes met with Lillian Luthor’s.

“Lena,” Kara groaned. Through her pain she tried to check if Lena was safe. She appeared to be unharmed, but she still hadn’t moved from the chair.

“Mother, stop this,” Lena said sharply.

“Oh, no, darling,” Lillian said, her voice sweet like poison. “Not until we’ve taken our revenge.” She pressed a button on a small device. 

_“You want revenge against Supergirl. I can help you with that, Lena. Here, now. I know you do, Lena. You can’t hide anything from me.”_

_“Yes, I want revenge.”_

* * *

Lena stared at her mother. Was this Lillian’s plan all along, to torture Supergirl—Kara—and make her believe that it was Lena’s plan all along? And why bring Lena along when she could so easily deny it?

“I didn’t mean that, Kara. Not like this.” She heard Lex’s voice echoing in her head, taunting her for begging, but it was important for her to know that however much she was angry at Kara, she did not want to see her hurt.

She did not want to see her writhing on the floor as green crept up her face.

She wouldn’t stand for it.

“Lena…” Kara tried to speak but the pain silenced her. 

Lena glanced at her mother and tugged on her wrist restraints. They didn’t budge.

Lena looked desperately over at Kara again. The woman was wearing a feminine blouse and tight burnt orange pants. 

It was jarring. When she thought about Kara as Supergirl, she always imagined Supergirl hiding in the identity of Kara Danvers, mocking her. She never thought of Kara— _her_ Kara, the one who cared too much and never gave up on her and who came late at night with donuts and hugs—fighting, risking her life.

Catching her in her arms as she plummeted from a high balcony.

Holding her tight as the plane she was trapped in fell to the reservoir below.

Carrying her away from an explosion where her own mother had left her to die.

Offering to trade her own life for Lena’s while Reign held Lena by the throat.

Could it be that she had it wrong this whole time—maybe Supergirl was the persona and Kara Danvers the person…Kara Danvers, the woman now writhing in agony on the floor of her office?

The same office where she had hidden a knife just in case she was ever held hostage again.

Lena supposed she had Lex to thank for that, she thought bitterly.

Slowly, she moved herself closer to the desk. She removed the knife she had placed out of site on the underside of the desk and cut her bounds.

Lena rushed to Kara, grabbing at the ropes. Though the ropes had tightened themselves against Kara, they were not designed to resist a merely human opponent. Quickly, she was able to remove several loops, and Kara’s gasps grew slower.

“You’re pathetic,” Lillian hissed from behind her. “But then again, what was I expecting? You were never loyal to the Luthor name. You always preferred to grovel to Kryptonians.” Her eyes narrowed as Lena remained bent over Kara. “While killing your own brother in cold blood.”

Lillian finished speaking just as Lena succeeded in getting the final bind off of Kara. Her eyes met Kara’s, and despite all of her anger, she feared nothing more than seeing disgust in those blue eyes looking back at her.

Instead, she just saw warmth. 

“I’m so sorry, Lena,” Kara whispered. “I’m so sorry for everything.”

“Well isn’t that touching?” Lillian stated. “But I’m afraid I am going to have to cut this short,” she added, raising a large glowing-green gun.

“Like hell you are,” Lena hissed. In one stroke, she grabbed a glass vase from her desk and spun it towards her mother’s head. Lillian fell with a thump.

Lena gasped. Trembling, she ran to Lillian. 

“She’s alive,” she muttered, relief flowing through her. She hated Lillian, sure, but she couldn’t stand to have another of her family’s blood on her hands. “Just concussed.”

Kara nodded, still weak from the kryptonite. “We need to restrain her.”

Lena nodded. She pulled a pair of handcuffs from a drawer across the office. Kara raised an eyebrow, but didn’t say anything as Lena handcuffed her mother in place.

“I’ll… call Alex,” Kara finally said. “Lillian has a record a mile long. Hopefully we can put her away for good this time.”

Lena watched Kara turn away, and she fought the urge to run from the room. “Kara, wait,” she finally said.

Kara turned back to her. At one glance, Kara began to cry. “I’m so sorr—”

“Please, let me talk,” Lena said quietly, and Kara stopped. “I— I really do miss you. But I don’t trust you. Not yet.”

Lena thought she saw a faint glimmer in Kara’s blue eyes at the word at her last words.

Kara nodded. “I don’t blame you. I lied to you for three years, Lena. I told myself I was protecting you, and maybe that was true. But I was also protecting myself. As Kara, I could just be with you. I didn’t have to freak out about kryptonite or juggle our family’s pasts or anything. I could just be with you. It was selfish, but that’s what I did.”

A lump grew in Lena’s throat. She felt dangerously near tears. 

“And then, this last year, you’d been betrayed by so many people. I thought I was protecting you by not hurting you with the knowledge. So instead I just hurt you with lies. I’m so sorry, Lena.”

Lena’s chin trembled. One renegade tear slipped down her cheeks. “I never wanted to lose you, Kara. I never wanted to push you away. I just can’t trust you.”

Kara nodded, wiping tears from her shimmering eyes. “You don’t have to trust me to not lose me, Lena. I promise you—I am going to work every day to regain that trust. I made a terrible mistake. I hurt you in a way you’ve been hurt by so many people. But unless you tell me to leave, I’m not going anywhere.”

Her words hung in the room, a tacit challenge.

After a moment, Lena gave a pained laugh, shaking her head. Her own tears had begun to run free.

“Stay. Please.”

**Author's Note:**

> I usually write Agents of SHIELD fics, but I've recently binged Supergirl and fallen in love with Supercorp. So of course the first thing I write is super angsty. But alas, after that finale, I couldn't just leave poor Lena in limbo for four months.
> 
> I'd love to hear your thoughts :)


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